Riding Shotgun with Top Gear's Rutledge Wood on HOT ROD Power Tour 2014, With Video

Rutledge Wood's '49 Chevy Step Van has a sticker on the front right corner that says "Legit", and that's the truth. I don't care if you like the Top Gear America TV show, I won't let you say a single bad thing about its host, Rutledge Wood--and that's not just because he bought me a delicious (not really) waffle chicken sandwich at White Castle. Rut is legit. He's a real car guy, and a really nice guy. He loves this hobby, he loves the people who are in it, and he is an excellent road trip companion.

Rutledge, Wes, and Freiburger checking the route.

Our morning started early in Charleston, West Virginia. It's not hard to find Rut in a crowd. Even on Power Tour, where you could conceivably get into the wrong red '69 Camaro about 16 times in one row of cars, there aren't too many bare aluminum Kurbmaster vans sitting on Silverado 2500 truck frames and powered by 525 horse LS3 crate engines hanging around in the parking lots. If the vehicle wasn't distinctive enough, it's emblazoned with Rutledge's happy bearded face, and a few seconds after I spotted the decal, its happy, bearded inspiration came leaping out to greet me, much more cheerful than anyone should be at 7 in the morning. "How could I be unhappy?" Rut asked, "Look what we get to do today!" Also cheerful was Rutledge's father Bill, who was trading seats with me, and looking forward to the plush, modern comforts of our Chevy Suburban camera car.

Adam, Rutledge's brother-in-law, and his father (Rutledge's Uncle-in-law, is that a thing?) offered me the front seat and would accept no refusals. I scrambled into the Recaro seat and pulled the wide red racing belt tight. We were cruising with the doors open, and falling out was a distinct possibility. As excited as I was to be riding in the van, Rut was about 100-times more excited to be driving it while HOT ROD photographer Wes Allison directed us for some car-to-car action. "I have been reading car magazines forever," he said. "Wes is like, a legend. The Wes Allison is shooting my car. Take a picture of Wes shooting my car, will you?"

This is Rut's excited face. He makes it a lot.

"If you really want Wes to like you," I suggested "Tell him you'd like to find a McDonalds for breakfast. He only eats at McDonalds." Seconds later, Rutledge had the van off on the shoulder running in the gravel as he shouted over to the Suburban about his love and desire for McDonalds. "I may have laid it on a bit thick," he admitted afterwards. Whatever he did, it worked, and we pulled in to get some fabulous fast food breakfast items. We weren't the only ones with that idea, and the only open space was directly under a low-hanging tree. Branches shrieked and scraped over the roof as Rutledge backed the big van in. Heads turned in our direction. "It always makes that sound in Reverse!" Rutledge yelled out the door.

Yes, there are branches inside the van.

Adam and I went inside to get coffee while Rutledge caught up with Ralph Sikes from American Resto Mods, (the shop that built the van back in 2013 with help from Summit Racing). "One of the reasons I do Power Tour is to help promote all the people who have helped me with the car builds," Rut said when we piled back inside. As we drove, he told me about his unwieldy car collection, which keeps growing with each new shoot on Top Gear or roadtrip like Power Tour. "I fall for every car we use on the show," he said. "I've bought like, six of them. Then I get them home and it's not the same." He's talking about the kind of magic that happens when you have an adventure in a car. It's that kind of logic that gets people out here on Power Tour in immaculate split-window 'Vettes or Hemi roadrunners, willing to sit in traffic for hours and brave potholes, rain and cheap motels in cars that they wouldn't normally take out of the garage if it was misty.

Our conversations are punctuated by the van's horn, which Rutledge beeps twice in quick succession to acknowledge every man, woman, child and squirrel who makes eye contact along the route. At stop signs he leans out to shake hands and exchange pleasantries with everyone. There is none of the standoffishness you would expect from a TV host, and it doesn't seem faked or forced. He really likes meeting people, and he's honored that they want to meet him. When we start talking about celebrity and television, he seems reluctant to consider himself a celebrity. "I really feel like I'm just a guy who knows a lot of people," he said. "I just want to make people smile. If I hadn't got into broadcasting, I'd probably be a youth minister or something." That led us into a discussion of how he got into broadcasting, and it wasn't some seedy casting couch story like you're probably thinking. "I had a series of jobs, AM radio co-host, sales at Hertz rental cars, Karaoke DJ at a club, MC for NASCAR, and finally they gave me a chance to do some more for NASCAR, and through a fan of what I did there, the History Channel found me on YouTube, and invited me to the auditions for Top Gear. I never thought I would get the gig. I still have days where I don't believe it."

Beep Beep!

Our conversations meandered from there, covering such things as the best day ever at work, "Probably the time we went up Pikes Peak, or maybe the Nurburgring," to the details of his many weird cars, "I have three girls, and they really like the cars. Their favorite so far has been the Donk I had. We had a custom plate made. It said Up Dog, so that when people would drive by, they'd ask us, 'What's up dog?'" Recalling this cracked him and Adam up, so there was a lull in conversation while they recovered. As we went through the small town of Gallipolis--a burg so pretty it must be hiding some scary Stepford Wives-type secret, a small yellow Mini pulled up along side us. "Your blinker is on," the driver told us, and that led to a good half hour of teasing Rutledge about being an old man. "Later I'm going to yell at some kids on my lawn," he said.

"Hey! Your blinker is on!"< hangs head in shame >

Rutledge would never yell at kids on his lawn. He is friendly to everyone, from the tobacco-chewing Bill, who was leaning out of a take-out window watching cars go by to the ladies in White Castle who explained that the secret behind the "double bottom burger" was "throwing out the tops." He never laughs at anyone or makes them feel unimportant, and even the stern-faced military convoy boys offered us a small wave when Rutledge beep-beeped at them as we rolled by.

Dudes were serious.

All through the drive, Rutledge kept apologizing for the rough ride, the heat, the noise, but the van was not at all unpleasant. The front seats in particular were incredibly comfortable, and the open door and tall wrapping windows offered a fantastic view of the countryside as we rumbled through. The floor got warm, but not unbearably, and since the second half of our drive was a little damp--because we hit some pretty serious rain, and the water found every seam in the van's construction, the heat was appreciated.

When the water rises above the level of the flip flops, you know there's a problem.

What was really impressive about the van was that the thing really moved! Freiburger had driven it earlier in the week and told me it was fast, but I didn't really believe him. After riding in it, I wouldn't bet against it making it down a dragstrip in the 14-second range, but I couldn't convince Rut to try it when we got to Norwalk. He was a bit overwhelmed taking pictures with fans, so I can't give him too hard a time about it. Next time though, I want to see if my butt-accelerometer is accurate.